Money in Politics

How McConnell’s book advance stacks up against other big deals

A selection of advances publishers have paid to politicians, entertainers and journalists over the past 15 years.

Final Business

Up in smoke: Amid $10,000 funerals, Cave Hill Cemetery cremation rates have soared

Only 10 years ago, just 3% of the internments at storied Cave Hill Cemetery involved cremations. Today, the cemetery estimates the rate has soared to 37%. The statewide rate is lower: 22%, but across the U.S., it’s nearly 47%.

UrnNo wonder. A traditional funeral in the U.S. costs $8,000 to $10,000, with the single-biggest expense being a casket, averaging $2,300 — a pricey item cremation doesn’t require. Urns for ashes, on the other hand, are a lot cheaper, such as the $139.95 one pictured, left.

The cemetery’s more famous permanent residents include KFC founder Harland Sanders.

Related: Read more about Louisville cemeteries, and funeral homes. Much of the state’s funeral industry is regulated by the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors; the board publishes industry laws and regulations, including requirements for inspections and publicly available price lists for caskets and other merchandise, plus services.

Photo, top: the cemetery’s iconic entrance at Broadway and Baxter.

Food and Dining

Finn's logoNewly open — the past three weeks — Finn’s is serving southern comfort food for breakfast, lunch and dinner in up-and-coming Germantown. A sample of what looks good on the menu for dinner: brown sugar salmon with hop’n john and creole butter sauce; price isn’t on the website’s menu. 😦

Executive chef is Brian Curry, formerly at Napa River Grill. The operating partner is Steve Clements, who last owned Avalon, the Highlands restaurant he sold to El Camino four years ago, says Insider Louisville.

Finn’s is in the historic Fincastle building directly behind the new Germantown Mills Lofts. The art deco building once housed offices for the 1800-era cotton mill that’s been converted to the rental loft-style apartments. In the age of social media, it’s on Facebook; Instagram, and customers are tweeting.

Where: 1318 McHenry St. When: Breakfast: 7 a.m.-11 a.m. weekdays; lunch: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays; and dinner: 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Related: Germantown’s booming as new families and businesses join long-time residents, says Louisville magazine.

Latest Headlines

Go, Kindred: Home health market in quick expansion; lightning-fast Google Fiber nears a done Louisville deal

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated at 2:01 p.m.

Google Fiber map
Google Fiber cities: Louisville is potential (gray); current (blue); upcoming (purple).

KINDRED: The global home health market will expand rapidly in the next four years, according to newly released research (Home Health Care News).

BROWN-FORMAN: Asia-Pacific Marketing Director Michael McShane recalls the worst time he ever got lost traveling on business: New Orleans. “I was so excited to be in this famous city, that I went out exploring without my hotel key and promptly forgot where I was staying” (Financial Review).

TACO BELL: Employees in Brunswick, Ohio, called police at 3 a.m. Friday to report a drunken driver in a white Ford Taurus in the restaurant’s drive-thru. Police pulled the man over a short time later (Cleveland).

In other news, Louisville now looks like the next city to get super high-speed Internet service from Google Fiber. The Metro Council is set to pass a crucial ordinance Thursday, giving the search giant a franchise to continue to the next stage of installation. Service could become available in the fall. The service would provide speeds up to 100 times faster than conventional broadband (Courier-Journal). On Google Fiber’s website, Louisville is shown as “potential.” The service is already available in Atlanta, Kansas City, Nashville and Provo, Utah.

Meanwhile, AT&T this week started imposing higher rates for customers using large volumes of data — and customers aren’t happy (Courier-Journal, too). Boulevard adds: way to not compete with Google Fiber.

U.S. stocks jumped less than an hour into trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other indices all up more than 1%. Big employer shares in Boulevard’s stock portfolio were all higher, too (Google Finance).

Map, top: Google Fiber.

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

Jennifer LawrenceBoulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

One starWarning! Boulevard wrote this review before eating breakfast. We strongly recommend that you don’t do so.

Continuing her publicity tour for the new “X-Men: Apocalypse,” Lawrence hit the Tonight Show last night, where she, fellow-guest John Oliver and host Jimmy Fallon played True Confessions. In that game, they took turns confessing two things — one true, one false — then competed to separate truth from fiction. Take it away, CDA News:

As Lawrence was playing, she kept swiping at her nose. A few swipes later, Fallon pointed out something was on her nose. Again, Lawrence swiped. “Was it a booger?” she asked. “Yes,” Fallon said. Then she proceeded to admit she’d felt the booger creeping up, but thought no way, “we’re on TV, there’s no way a booger can exist.”

“You totally boogered out!” Fallon said, laughing hysterically.

Boulevard isn’t laughing hysterically. We’d give CDA zero stars if that were possible. So, they get one.

Diversions

Speed museum weekend film: ‘It’s the Super Bowl of social fashion events’

The recently completed Speed Art Museum‘s expansion included a first-ever 142-seat cinema equipped with state-of-the-art technology. This weekend’s film, “The First Monday in May,” is about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Gala, an annual event that’s surged in popularity under the direction of top Vogue magazine editor Anna Winter. It got a 79% on movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

Movie times, with links to buy tickets: